Casinos and other forms of gaming comprise a growing multi-billion dollar industry both domestically and abroad, with electronic and microprocessor based gaming machines being more popular than ever. In a typical electronic gaming machine, such as a slot machine, video poker machine, video keno machine or the like, a game play is initiated through a player wager of money or credit, whereupon the gaming machine determines a game outcome, presents the game outcome to the player and then potentially dispenses an award of some type, including a monetary award, depending upon the game outcome. Many additional gaming machine components, features and programs have been made possible in recent years through this proliferation of electronic gaming machines, including those involving linked progressive jackpots, player tracking and loyalty points programs, and various forms of cashless gaming, among other items. Many of these added components, features and programs can involve the implementation of various back-end and/or networked systems, including more hardware and software elements, as is generally known.
Electronic and microprocessor based gaming machines themselves can include various hardware and software components to provide a wide variety of game types and game playing capabilities, with such hardware and software components being generally well known in the art. A typical electronic gaming machine will have a central processing unit (“CPU”) or master gaming controller (“MGC”) that controls various combinations of hardware and software devices and components that encourage game play, allow a player to play a game on the gaming machine and control payouts and other awards. Software components can include, for example, boot and initialization routines, various game play programs and subroutines, credit and payout routines, image and audio generation programs, various component modules and a random number generator, among others. Hardware devices and peripherals can include, for example, bill validators, coin acceptors, card readers, keypads, buttons, levers, touch screens, coin hoppers, player tracking units and the like. In addition, each gaming machine can have various audio and visual display components that can include, for example, speakers, display panels, belly and top glasses, exterior cabinet artwork, lights, and top box dioramas, as well as any number of video displays of various types to show game play and other assorted information, with such video display types including, for example, a cathode ray tube (“CRT”), a liquid crystal display (“LCD”), a light emitting diode (“LED”), a flat panel display and a plasma display, among others.
In addition, electronic gaming machines and gaming systems often employ cashless instruments for ease of paying out winnings and/or machine credits or balances to users. Such cashless instruments can include, for example, credit cards, charge cards, stored value cards, smart cards, thermally rewritable cards or tickets, chips, tokens and other physical markers, as well as cash vouchers or paper tickets, such as those used in the EZ Pay® system by IGT of Reno, Nev. In the case of printed tickets, this can involve the use of ticket printers and other associated hardware and software components within or about the gaming machine as well. Such paper tickets are typically printed at the gaming machine by a printer upon the request of a player at the completion of a game or gaming session, and signify a cash amount owed to the player, a portion of which can include winnings owed to the player. These paper tickets typically include appropriate currency amounts and identification features, and can also include other informational items as desired by a given gaming operator.
Of course, the introduction of cashless instruments such as these paper tickets or cash vouchers can introduce new issues for players and gaming operators, such as mechanical problems with a printer or other equipment, paper or ink shortages at one or more printers or gaming machines, and new alternatives for fraud, among others. One issue that has arisen through the use of gaming machines adapted to issue such paper tickets concerns the need to reconfigure and recertify any gaming machine that is distributed to and used in a foreign jurisdictions or other locality where some other currency denomination is used. Currently, electronic gaming machines are certified by a competent authority or other authorized party when they are first manufactured. Such certification procedures and processes are well known in the art, and are required by virtually any gaming jurisdiction or authority.
Whenever a gaming machine is sent abroad and is to be reconfigured to make printed ticket payouts in a currency denomination and/or language that is different from its original manufactured currency denomination and/or language, then new programs, updates, firmware and/or other items are typically provided to the MGC, the printer, and/or various other components of the affected gaming machine. As is known in the art, however, any code change that affects primary programs run by the MGC of a gaming machine is virtually always treated as a potentially “untrustworthy” event, and thus results in a need for a recertification of the affected gaming machine. Such a recertification process can be an inconvenient, costly and time-consuming endeavor. Where payouts in different currencies and/or languages than the manufactured currency and/or language are desired, such a process is simply accepted as necessary, and the needed program and firmware updates are installed.
Whether a gaming machine remains in its originally manufactured state or is reconfigured to a new currency and/or language, virtually all gaming machines that are adapted to issue printed tickets can only do so in one currency and one language in a given configuration. Although this might not be a problem in many cases, there may arise times when such inflexibility can be inconvenient. For example, several European casinos are located in close proximity to several different countries or jurisdictions where different currencies and languages are used. In such instances, it might be more convenient to permit a player to request a printed ticket in the currency and language of his or her choice, particularly where multiple currencies are accepted and paid out by cashiers at a given casino or gaming establishment. Unfortunately, gaming machines are presently not adapted to provide such options to players.
While existing systems and methods for providing printed tickets and other cashless instruments associated with gaming machines and gaming systems have been adequate in the past, improvements are usually welcomed and encouraged. In light of the foregoing, it is desirable to develop methods and systems that can issue printed tickets and cashless instruments in multiple currencies and languages, and in particular for such methods and systems to allow individual gaming machines to issue printed tickets and cashless instruments in multiple currencies and languages without requiring a recertification of the machine when switching from one to another.